How to dry hawthorn at home

In winter, sometimes you want something such! Habitual sweets are fed up, compotes have all been tasted ... But shouldn't you drink hawthorn tea? Where to get? Out of the box. Probably, they forgot that they dried the fruits in the fall and even cleaned up in a dark, dry place for such cases.

Not stocked, do not know how to dry hawthorn. Yes, it's very simple! More time will be spent on training. Read, write, useful in the fall.

Cooking hawthorn for drying

Berry picking starts from the end of August and ends ... in the winter. Of course, it is better to avoid severe damage to the hawthorn by frost. Such raw materials will be scary brown, watery and tasteless. Gather ripe fruit beautiful color. Red, maroon. Light do not take, they have not yet matured.

Carry all this stuff home. There begins the most tiresome stage. They touch the berries, clearing them from tails and mrushushki. By the way, some sources still recommend throwing moldy, spoiled and deformed berries.A logical question arises: why did you even take them and cornered them home? Are you rotten? Is it only from greed grab.

Meet hawthorn recommendations do not wash. And someone? In the dirty more vitamins probably. Even if the raw materials were collected in an ecologically clean place (where can we find such now?), Then dust is omnipresent. Wash hawthorn need definitely! It is not necessary to rub it strongly, but it is desirable to rinse it in a sieve or colander.

Then the berries spread on a paper or cloth towel to dry the remaining water. If you do not eat the washed Feng Shui, then sit down and wipe each berry with a handkerchief. Now start drying.

Council You can try to squeeze bones from the hawthorn tool for cherries and olives. But practice shows that this is a bad idea. Too much pulp is lost in the process.

Where to dry hawthorn

Dried hawthorn in several ways.

Outdoors. Hawthorn poured on trays, laid out with paper, in a single layer. Put on the street, but pritenyayut from direct sunlight. From above, it is desirable to cover with gauze from wasps and other insects.

When the weather is good, drying takes about 6-8 days.The paper will have to be changed daily. Periodically it is necessary to stir the berries. At night, pallets are cleaned into the house so that the dew does not destroy all efforts.

Hawthorn is considered ready when it loses weight up to 75%, becomes wrinkled, dark maroon and hard to the touch.

Council If the weather is cool, the hawthorn can be dried in the attic or in a warm barn.

In the room. If at the time of picking berries in the dwelling the central heating is already working, then the hawthorn can be dried directly on the battery.

Raw materials are prepared as described above. Then poured into containers that fit on the radiator, without fear of falling. Paper down, too, will have to lay. The rest of the process is no different from drying in the open air.

Daily change of bedding, turning. True, in the house you can not cover from insects and do not hide from dew. But from pets will have to dismiss. They put their curious, wet nose everywhere. Can and on the floor reset your blanks.

Duration of drying is difficult to even be called. It all depends on the temperature of the batteries. Willingness is determined by experience. Touched, chewed. Hard and dry? So you can clean up for storage.

CouncilDry hawthorn to readiness plus 1 more day. So your reserves will be able to lie up to 2 years in normal conditions, and not moldy in the first month.

In the electric dryer. The fastest way to save the maximum amount of vitamins and nutrients. Convenient because at the same time you can dry a few kilograms of hawthorn. As much as your dryer can hold.

The temperature is set no higher than + 60 ° C, the pallets are swapped every hour. The lowest set up, the rest are shifted down by one. Paper is of course not needed, and the preparation of the berries is no different from the one described above.

The approximate drying time depends on the power of your dryer. As a rule, it makes no more than 14 hours at full loading of the device. Willingness is determined visually and again by touch. Beautiful, firm? So it's time to shoot.

Council Do not exceed the drying temperature. Hawthorn dries faster, but the quality of the finished product may suffer. Yes, and vitamins are destroyed.

In the oven. The baking sheet is covered with parchment paper. It is desirable - siliconized, almost nothing sticks to it.Hawthorn poured into a single layer, put in the oven. The temperature is set to + 65 ° C.

The door must be left ajar so that evaporating moisture can freely go outside. Berries need to be mixed periodically. This will allow them to dry more evenly.

Approximate drying time ... unknown. It all depends on the moisture content of the raw materials and the volume of the oven. But for sure no more than 6 hours one baking sheet.

Some sources recommend checking the readiness of the compression test. You need to take a fistful of berries and squeeze them in your fist. Unclench and see ... palm burn! No, of course, it is necessary to try to burn yourself with such a temperature. But the result of such a test can be very unreliable. Supposedly undried raw materials are stuck together. Well yes. A little withered old woman will squeeze a hawthorn in her palm or a hefty young woman of 30 years old. What does anyone have to stick together?

Do not invent yourself puzzles. They took this very handful of hawthorn and cut it with a knife. Happened? So it is necessary to dry the workpiece yet. Attempt failed, and the berry flew to the other end of the room? Immediately remove the baking sheet from the oven, it's time.

CouncilIf your oven allows, then load into it several baking sheets at once. In this case, it will go much faster than drying one by one. Only once per hour, swap them upwards.

In a refrigerator. It is called the method of cold drying. This method is suitable for those who have not yet acquired the oven or the gas in the house is from a cylinder, and not centralized. Or if there is no loft with a shed, there is no place to put trays on the street. But there are few reasons! For this purpose, you will have to allocate a place on the shelf or even take it entirely.

On the selected pallet lay newspapers in two layers. Then pour hawthorn in one layer. The top is covered with a layer of newspapers or cotton cloth. Even ordinary gauze will do.

Now all this construction must be placed on the shelf in the refrigerator. And leave there for about 5 days. The bottom layer of the newspaper is changed daily, the upper one can be left as it was. Stirring is welcome, but not required. Everything is already flipped when replacing the litter.

Willingness is determined by the usual method to touch. Berries should darken, greatly reduced in size and become firm. Even weak softness suggests that the hawthorn is underdressed.Leave the pan in the fridge for another 2-3 days.

Council This method only works in refrigerators with auto-freezing function (but frost). Old Soviet refrigerators do not have this advantage, so this trick will not work in them.

How to dry hawthorn? It turns out it's very simple. Choose any suitable method, and in the winter, throw berries into the teapot and enjoy the wonderful fortified and fragrant tea.

Video: how to dry the hawthorn in the oven